Transcript [00:00] Hassan Elon, Levy, good evening. Thank [00:02] you [00:03] for being with us. So, it's ethnic [00:05] cleansing by Jewish settlers and the [00:08] occupation is illegal. What did you make [00:11] of what Ed Miliband had to say? [00:14] >> That Ed Miliband is playing student [00:15] politics again, not for the first time [00:18] of course since the famous red line with [00:19] Syria, but this time he's placing [00:22] dynamite under an important strategic [00:24] relationship for Britain. There are no [00:26] winners from a diplomatic fight between [00:29] Britain and Israel other than the Labour [00:31] Party that has to appease its Gaza first [00:33] constituency and that's why you're doing [00:35] it. This is the first issue that the [00:36] parliamentary Labour Party can rally [00:39] around at the expense of Britain's [00:41] foreign policy interests. The timing is [00:44] especially bizarre just 6 weeks before [00:47] an Israeli election and Israel is now [00:50] announcing retaliatory steps, steps it [00:52] did not want to take against Britain, [00:54] steps it did not take even when Labour [00:56] recognized a non-existent Palestinian [00:59] state in response to October 7th while [01:01] the war was still going to make it clear [01:04] that Israel is not the Labour Party's [01:05] punching bag [01:07] or strategic partnership with Britain, [01:09] but this is the straw that broke the [01:10] camel's back. [01:11] >> Right. So, so just [01:13] let's talk about this phrase ethnic [01:15] cleansing. What's he basing his claims [01:17] on? He's basing his claims on more [01:20] settlements being approved in the last 4 [01:22] years of Netanyahu government than in [01:23] the last 20 years. 4,000 Palestinians [01:27] evicted from their homes, hundreds [01:28] killed, 700,000 Jewish settlers now on [01:31] occupied land and you only have to [01:34] look at the words of the Israeli Finance [01:37] Minister, the Palestinian state is being [01:39] erased from the table not with slogans, [01:41] but with actions. We are burying the [01:43] two-state solution. That is the problem [01:46] that Ed Miliband and the Burnham [01:48] government has because they support the [01:51] two-state solution. [01:52] >> I think we're confusing two separate [01:54] issues here. There is the question of [01:55] the vigilante settler extremist violence [01:58] and no one is denying we have a runaway [02:00] problem, a total breakdown of law and [02:03] order. Opposition parties promising to [02:05] deal with that with a very firm hand and [02:07] that's why the timing now just before an [02:10] election is bizarre. An intervention [02:12] that will only support Ben-Gvir and [02:14] Smotrich. [02:15] >> But it's not just the violence, is it [02:17] Elon? It's not just the violence, it's [02:18] the scale of the settlements. 700 here [02:21] on occupied [02:24] land. It's the It's the expanding [02:26] settlements that that is that is being [02:29] talked about here as well as the [02:31] violence. [02:32] >> There are two separate issues. The [02:34] second is the question of the so-called [02:36] two-state solution. And Mark, if you [02:38] speak to Israelis in the street and tell [02:40] them two-state solution after Israel was [02:42] invaded by a barbarian army from [02:46] territory that it withdrew from in the [02:48] interest of peace, they will laugh in [02:50] your face. The response will be [02:53] ridicule. The idea that after Israel [02:56] withdrew from the Gaza Strip and [02:58] received the child-snatching murderous [03:00] army of October 7th, Israel should [03:02] repeat that same experiment from Judea [03:05] and Samaria, 20 times bigger, from the [03:07] mountains overlooking Tel Aviv and [03:09] surrounding Jerusalem and place the [03:11] country's entire narrow waistline at the [03:14] mercy of whatever terrorist army might [03:16] come down from the hills. [03:18] >> Look, yeah, that's what that's what [03:19] that's what you call it. I mean, others [03:22] call it including the UN, many other [03:23] countries, obviously the occupied [03:25] territory. But let me make a point about [03:28] Hamas. Isn't expanding settlements the [03:31] way arguably to drive more people to [03:35] Hamas? [03:37] >> Mark, the settlements have nothing to do [03:38] with Hamas. Hamas is a genocidal [03:41] jihadist Islamist group that wants the [03:43] destruction of Israel from the river to [03:45] the sea and the establishment of an [03:47] Islamic caliphate. Hamas was emboldened [03:50] when the British government told it that [03:52] it would recognize a non-existent [03:54] Palestinian state if it kept the war [03:57] going on. And Hamas and other [03:59] Palestinian terrorists will only feel [04:01] emboldened now by seeing an entirely [04:03] pointless fight between the Labour Party [04:06] and Israel. [04:07] >> But Elon, if you want to [04:08] weaken Hamas, if you want to weaken the [04:10] Hamas, isn't one way to do that to [04:13] establish [04:15] a credible path to a two-state solution, [04:18] which is what the British government [04:20] want, which is what 11 other countries [04:22] want? [04:23] >> If we want peace, Mark, we need to [04:25] understand the root cause of the [04:26] conflict. And the root cause is that the [04:28] Palestinian national movement remains [04:31] committed to the destruction of Israel [04:33] from the river to the sea, a phrase that [04:35] will be familiar to many of your viewers [04:37] because it's been chanted on the streets [04:38] of Britain many times. If we want to [04:40] solve that, the UK giving more taxpayer [04:43] money to UNRWA, the agency whose staff [04:46] took part in the October 7th massacre, [04:48] that keeps alive the dream that one day [04:51] Israel will be wiped away from the river [04:53] to the sea, that is entrenching this [04:55] conflict. It is committing us to further [04:57] bloodshed. If Britain wants to make [04:59] positive steps towards peace in this [05:01] region, it needs to turn around to the [05:03] anti-Zionist mob on the streets and say, [05:06] "No, we're not going to give in to this [05:08] craziness and this extremism." Israel [05:11] exists. [05:11] >> Elon, the problem are the settlements. [05:13] The problem, Elon, are the settlements, [05:15] and the truth is the Israeli government [05:17] is inextricably linked to the expansion [05:20] of those settlements and support for the [05:24] settlers. [05:26] >> Mark, the problem is we have a jihadi [05:28] terrorist organization called Hamas that [05:31] seized the Gaza Strip the moment Israel [05:33] withdrew. And international pressure [05:36] that tells Israelis they need to pull [05:38] out of the West Bank, the mountains [05:40] overlooking Tel Aviv, when that would be [05:42] taken over by Hamas's terrorist army as [05:44] well, is not credible. It opens the UK [05:47] up to ridicule. This is a step that will [05:49] reduce Britain's influence and relevance [05:52] because it shows it has simply not [05:54] learned anything from the October 7th [05:56] massacre. [05:56] >> Right. Elon, Elon, just to finish, we're [05:58] running out of time, but I just want to [05:59] ask you about a point Ed Miliband made. [06:02] I am a made. I am Jewish, he said. I am [06:04] a supporter of the state of Israel, but [06:06] that does not mean you can't be a [06:08] supporter of Palestine. Our argument is [06:11] not with the people of Israel. It is [06:13] with the conduct of the Israeli [06:16] government. And isn't that the point [06:17] here, that the British government and [06:19] other governments seem uh see the whole [06:22] prospect of a two-state solution [06:25] disappearing very rapidly under a [06:28] Netanyahu government? [06:29] >> Mark, the Netanyahu government isn't [06:31] burying the two-state solution. The [06:33] October 7th massacre buried the [06:35] two-state solution. [06:36] >> Well, a minister has said it. [06:37] >> to be I used to be a very strong [06:40] supporter [06:41] >> has said, literally, we are burying the [06:43] two-state solution. [06:44] >> Because that is how he wishes to sell it [06:46] to his constituency. Mark, I used to be [06:48] a very big supporter of the two-state [06:50] solution. But in nearly 20 years that [06:53] Gaza was used as a launchpad for rockets [06:56] against Israel, and Israel turned to [06:58] supporters of the two-state solution and [07:00] said, "How can you guarantee that will [07:02] not happen from the West Bank if we pull [07:05] out?" No one had good answers. And on [07:07] October 7th, we realized the threat of [07:10] an Israeli withdrawal is not rockets. [07:12] It's a child-snatching rapist army in [07:15] the form of Hamas's barbarian horde. [07:17] >> Right. Okay. Elon, we're [07:18] we've run out of time. But sorry to [07:21] interrupt, we have run out of time. [07:22] >> continue another time. [07:23] >> Yeah, Elon, thank you very much indeed. [07:25] >> Thank you, Mark. [07:26] >> Right.
